


I know I'm not alone

by drelfina



Category: Naruto
Genre: Founders Era, Gen, M/M, Not much plot, it's all about the comfort and cuddles, no real on-screen non-con, referred non-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-12-10
Packaged: 2020-12-24 20:43:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21105716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drelfina/pseuds/drelfina
Summary: This time, he's too late.But it's alright, he won't be alone again.Life sucks for Tobirama. But this time, it won't be. Not again.Edo Tensei Tobirama/bbTobirama, again.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Perelka_L](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Perelka_L/gifts).

> https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/60431490 no. 72 from the entire list. hnnnnngh.

It's very selfish of him, he knows. Tobirama had given so much for his Clan - his father's vision, then his anija's, and when his father and his anija were gone, he had given everything for the Village, trying to build systems that would keep themselves running, keep going without his interference.... 

He'd given what he could to his students, setting up a school so that children would get to be _children_ and students and not _soldiers_. He'd given so much so that the tragedy of his little brothers would not be repeated. 

And at the end of it all... 

At the end he had died alone, on his knees in the dirt. The rain, always his friend, had deserted him even then, leaving him to choke on his own blood, thick and dry, the only wetness in his throat and hands, the moon even hiding from his dimming vision. 

When he opened his eyes again, it was to the knowledge that it was _then_, in the past, and there had been never anyone who would give anything for him the way he had given his mind and skill and _life_ for someone else's dreams. 

Why should he give his dreams up again? 

There was no one to ensure he would have dreams. 

Except himself.

His younger self was a child. 

Tiny. 

(When had he ever been so small?) 

And this time .... 

He had been too late. 

(Always too late) 

But there were more hurts, more dangers in the future, he thought, holding his younger self close, ignoring the strong bitter smell as his younger self curled his tiny face against his throat, as Tobirama opened the throats of the Uchiha who had seen a pale child and thought _target_ and _easy prey_. 

"This is the last time you will be prey," tobirama told him. 

Because who could be his shield, except himself?

This time, his younger self wouldn't have to witness the deaths of his violators, because for - for the first time, he would have a protector and a defender. 

He didn't have to be strong this time, because _Tobirama_ would be that for him. 

(Once a upon a time, Tobirama had thought he might like to be a scholar, to learn how the world might work. To study in the centres of learning, the Academias in the civilian cities, maybe even be a poet.) 

(But his hands had proven better at wielding suiton and a blade than a brush, and his mind had been turned to memorizing seals for destruction and death) 

(Maybe. Maybe this time, he could have that choice he had been denied, a long time ago)

There's that thick smell of iron. 

He's smelled it for as far as he could remember, starting from when they brought Kawarama home, and when he found Itama's body. 

It's dimmed now, distant, because his body is not his own, he knows. It doesn't matter though, because he knows this blood is not his own. 

And it's not his younger self's either, even though it's wet and dark in his younger self's hair, turning it sticky and dark. It'd dry matte and sticky, clumping and brown, but he knows this is not Tobira's blood. 

No. 

It's _their_ blood, and he doesn't have to paint the ground with it to know that they're not getting up again.

"They're dead," his younger self said, softly, into the quiet bubble of air that was just him and Tobira, that warm breath cupped in the curl of his throat, where Tobira only had to look up and only had to see him, and nothing else. 

Nothing more, nothing would hurt him. 

"Yes," He said, arm cradling his younger self carefully against his chest, knowing that there was no real heartbeat to comfort his younger self, but the solid chest and body of his edo tensei. 

It would have to be enough. 

"They're dead."

The river was only a few leaps away. 

There were smears of red, already starting to dry brown and flaky in smears across Tobira's slender arms. 

No armour, and he would feel his throat tighten, his jaw clench, if he still had his own body. There would be bruises on the exposed hipbones, but there was nothing he could do to wash that away. 

Instead he just waded into the water, holding Tobira close against him, tightening his hold when Tobira whimpered, flinching at the cold water. 

"You'll feel better when you're clean," he told Tobira. 

Tobira nodded and took a deep breath, before reaching down with those too-small hands to the water, and pulled up a shaky sinuous curl of liquid to his hands.

Where Tobira couldn't reach (couldn't see), he directed his own suiton to clean as gentle as he could, tugging away off-white smears from Tobira's hair, his neck, his back, gently lifting away grime and other stains to be washed away into the river. 

He didn't have a cloak, and Tobira's armour was... gone, so he wrapped the warm fur stole around his younger self, propping him gently but securely against his hip. 

"Let's go home," he said.


	2. Chapter 2

He had loved him, that maybe in another life, in another time, he might have held his hand the way that the boy's eyes kept asking for. 

But it had been a different time. A different world. 

And maybe this was never ever fated to happen - for he had taken Tobirama away from the Senju, out of the conflict and far away from the blood soaked land where blood would feed the parasitic, monster of a Village that ate its people and spat them out, just with paperwork. 

And still the Uchiha came for him - and Kagami had nothing in his eyes but lust and bloodthirst, hidden under a sharp smile that was wholly and entirely Uchiha. 

And Tobirama had had no choice. There had been only one way to end it, his hand warm with heart's blood and. 

"You killed him!" 

"Go back inside, Tobira." 

There had been only one way to end it, for any of them.

* * *

There was a grim sort of satisfaction in knowing that, no matter what he turned his mind to, he would have become a master at it. 

Tobira, even alone, in the high isolated mountains of Earth Country, far away and years later, would still be the top of his chosen field of natural studies and astronomy. 

He had gotten him books from wherever he knew of, and soon enough Tobira had started asking him for specific volumes he'd read references of.

(Books that he had no idea had ever existed but when Tobira slept, he would read them and realise how wide the world of knowledge had been, and how much he had been denied, a long time ago.) 

He had raised doves for Tobira, run messages and Tobira now had a whole correspondence with every single astronomer in every country as far as a dove could fly, and he had a reputation. 

His predictions and calculations were so accurate and precise that he knew TObira now was ascribed a sage-like status of some sort. 

Divinity. 

In his time, he had been the Senju Demon. 

Now Tobira was an Immortal in the Mountains. 

Of course the shinobi world would never have left him alone.

They would, of course, want him for their own uses and purposes. 

"We have to move," he said. 

"You killed him. Wasn't he -" Tobira swallowed, looked down at his desk, his hands were shaking. 

Death like this would have never made his hands shake, he noted, but Tobira... 

It had been years, and there was no longer a reason for Tobira to remember death so viscerally. 

He _wanted_ Tobira to be that sheltered so he only had to look at the stars. 

"We will move. I told you," he said, crouching down and catching Tobira's hands in his own. "You will never be hurt again." 

Not by anyone, never again. For once, there must be someone who would put Tobira first and foremost in their heart. 

And Senju Tobirama's curse had always been that he would only be able to devote himself wholly to someone else.


	3. An Alternate Scene

"Uchiha-san," Tobira said, and of course he'd recognise him. Of course he would - Uchiha had a very specific look, and the red eyes were... 

Obvious. 

And this vision? 

Was right there, a slender apparition that looked like he might vanish in the snow, long silver hair bound up in a scholar's top-knot, his pale robes all but vanishing into the snow. 

he looked civilian, but he was standing in the snow like a spirit - a yuki-onna. 

"Master," Kagami said, because of course he had to be polite - a sage like this , a scholar like this, looking like the mountain flower as delicate as crystal and pale as snow, he was basically a kami. "Would you ... come with me? My employer has wish of your knowledge." 

The vision narrowed his red eyes at him - red like the bright red of a rare white rabbit, delicately slender and framed with silver lashes, too light to see if there was snowflakes clinging to them. 

He didn't even seem to breathe the warm clouds of air that Kagami was. 

The Scholar hesitated. 

And Kagmai thought - thought he might say yes... 

Then there was a sharp swirl of snow and air in front of him, and a blade straight at his throat. 

"No," the crackling monstrosity said, and in his sharp voice was the crack of rock before the avalanche, his fur stole the crouched line of a snow leopard. "He goes nowhere with you, _Shinobi_. Leave." 

And then he and the Scholar of the Mountains were gone.


	4. Touka's POV: Can't Mend this Heart of Mine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She never forgives Hashirama.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Fic drabble here](https://archiveofourown.org/comments/267277768) basically from Lilili-cat's ficlet based on this fic. 
> 
> This probably works for both versions of this world's. uh. ending.

She had known that Tobirama had gone looking for Hashirama that day. 

He always did, especially after Itama's death, and usually when he fails to (he always does) he'd go and train by himself somewhere. Rarely does he come looking for Touka, and Touka... 

she knows what she is, who she is. She's not comforting, she's not a _brother_. 

She's just the cousin, daughter of a cousin of Butsuma's half-sister, the closest one in the main family children's ages, the one whose first missions had been to watch them toddle their way around the gardens and paid in sweet sugared haw. 

She was just the cousin - Tobirama had loved her, yes, and come to her when he scraped a knee, but he'd always gone to Hashirama for bigger comforts, even as he tried to give it all to his younger brothers when they had fallen or hurt - 

with their deaths, he had tried to go to Hashirama, but _Hashirama had not been there_. 

And this time... 

this time, Tobirama's failure to find his older brother meant he had been alone when he'd been ambushed by those _Monsters_. 

It didn't matter how good his suiton was - not against three full grown adult shinobi with katon - but. but he'd managed to kill them. 

(She had been one of those who had disposed of the bodies, and her mother hadn't had to tell her what it meant to be a woman. a child. vulnerable. It hadn't been a mystery to anyone with eyes, what the little scratches on their hands had meant, the tiny clawed marks in the dirt, half-washed away with obviously failed suiton. the final desperate messy sweep of suiton that had them finding the third body a good distance away, pants off but drowned in half his own blood ripped out from his lungs.)   
Uncontrolled. messy. 

Tobirama had always been good with Suiton, but against such opponents, in such desperation, of course he would never be able to manage finesse. 

(Would she? She didn't know if she would have been able to fight like this against three men. And as a shinobi, it really just takes one wrong move, one weakness, and then you might as well slit your own throat at the mercy of a sharingan) 

Her little cousin was gone. 

She thought - at first, that maybe it was a good t hing. Maybe he was just lost, trying to get home... 

but she found the adult foot prints in the mud, slenderer than the Uchiha, so a fourth adult, walking away, heavier than when it'd shown up. 

the fourth adult who had taken Tobira away - and exhausted, terrified, _injured_ \- Tobirama would have had no defense. 

Butsuma-sama had obviously known what it meant. What it could mean. For weeks, all of them had been scouring the countryside, the nearby towns, for news. 

She had killed, slaughtered every Uchiha in her path, because she knew what it meant. Tobirama had been a boy, yes, but it meant only he was unable to be pregnant, not now, not later. 

There were so, so many young boys in the brothels, so many young men as catamites and concubines amongst the nobles. 

None of them were white-haired and red eyed (But so many of them were pretty, exotic, _young_.) 

If Hashirama had been there, if he had gone back with Tobirama that day, this would never have happened. the Mokuton had manifested young, and his control was even better. Tobirama would still be here. 

Her baby cousin would still be here, not buried in absentia. 

Hashirama might be her Clan Leader's Heir (and only son), and one day he might be their Clan Leader. But she will never forgive him. 

(if she hadn't just let him go. If she had stopped Tobirama from looking, if she'd just held him back. Half an hour. An hour. Gone with him, maybe, the two of them would have been able to kill three uchiha looking for a child to violate.) 

(She will never forgive herself.)

**Author's Note:**

> *stares at the pretty art*
> 
> Did Tobirama kidnap Tobira and take him away? 
> 
> <s>Yes</s>
> 
> Also I imagine Scholar!Tobira to look something like this 
> 
> https://66.media.tumblr.com/1717970c3ca1a731459a1512d5fd704d/tumblr_p8ygqkeNva1uocgm5o8_500.png 
> 
> http://www.wallpaperhi.com/Art/Umbrella/trees_demons_horns_long_hair_red_eyes_male_anime_boys_umbrellas_white_hair_japanese_clothes_pointy_e_88509 
> 
> with the red eyes and plain white kimono/robes. 
> 
> so... basically looking like a yuki-onna or a white kitsune wandering around barefoot in the snow and Etobira constantly going ! and chasing after him with boots.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [A Different Future](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21739504) by [Lilili_cat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilili_cat/pseuds/Lilili_cat)


End file.
